Edmund Spenser Poems

Like as a huntsman after weary chase,Seeing the game from him escap'd away,Sits down to rest him in some shady place,With panting hounds beguiled of their prey:So after long pursuit and vain assay,When I all weary had the chase forsook,The gentle deer retu…
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Men call you fair, and you do credit it,For that your self ye daily such do see:But the true fair, that is the gentle wit,And vertuous mind, is much more prais'd of me.For all the rest, how ever fair it be,Shall turn to naught and lose that glorious hue:Bu…
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THe souerayne beauty which I doo admyre,witnesse the world how worthy to be prayzed:the light wherof hath kindled heauenly iyre,in my fraile spirit by her from basenesse raysed.That being now with her huge brightnesse dazed,base thing I can no more endure to vie…
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This holy season, fit to fast and pray,Men to devotion ought to be inclin'd:Therefore I likewise on so holy day,For my sweet saint some service fit will find.Her temple fair is built within my mind,In which her glorious image placed is,On which my thoughts…
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WHo is the same, which at my window peepes?Or whose is that faire face, that shines so bright,Is it not Cinthia, she that neuer sleepes,But walkes about high heauen al the night?O fayrest goddesse, do thou not enuyMy loue with me to spy:For thou likewise d…
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MOst happy letters fram'd by skilfull trade,with which that happy name was first defynd:the which three times thrise happy hath me made,with guifts of body, fortune and of mind.The first my being to me gaue by kind,from mothers womb deriu'd by dew descent,…
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One day I wrote her name upon the strand,But came the waves and washed it away:Agayne I wrote it with a second hand,But came the tyde, and made my paynes his pray."Vayne man," sayd she, "that doest in vaine assay.A mortall thing so to immortalize,For I my …
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LOe where she comes along with portly pace,Lyke Phoebe from her chamber of the East,Arysing forth to run her mighty race,Clad all in white, that seemes a virgin best.So well it her beseemes that ye would weeneSome angell she had beene.Her long loose yellow…
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OF this worlds Theatre in which we stay,My loue lyke the Spectator ydly sitsbeholding me that all the pageants play,disguysing diuersly my troubled wits.Sometimes I ioy when glad occasion sits,and mask in myrth lyke to a Comedy:soone after when my ioy to s…
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And ye high heauens, the temple of the gods,In which a thousand torches flaming brightDoe burne, that to vs wretched earthly clods:In dreadful darknesse lend desired light;And all ye powers which in the same remayne,More then we men can fayne,Poure out you…
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HArke how the Minstrels gin to shrill aloud,Their merry Musick that resounds from far,The pipe, the tabor, and the trembling Croud,That well agree withouten breach or iar.But most of all the Damzels doe delite,When they their tymbrels smyte,And thereunto d…
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SHe tooke him streight full pitiously lamenting,and wrapt him in her smock:She wrapt him softly, all the while repenting,that he the fly did mock.She drest his wound and it embaulmed welwith salue of soueraigne might:And then she bath'd him in a dainty wel…
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MY hungry eyes through greedy couetize,still to behold the obiect of their paine:with no contentment can themselues suffize,but hauing pine and hauing not complaine.For lacking it they cannot lyfe sustayne,and hauing it they gaze on it the more:in their am…
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THe glorious image of the makers beautie,My souerayne faynt, the Idoll of my thought,dare not henceforth aboue the bounds of dewtie,t'accuse of pride, or rashly blame for ought.For being as she is diuinely wrought,and of the brood of Angels heuenly borne:a…
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GReat wrong I doe, I can it not deny,to that most sacred Empresse my dear dred,not finishing her Queene of faery,that mote enlarge her liuing prayses dead:But lodwick, this of grace to me aread:doe ye not thinck th'accomplishment of it,sufficient worke for…
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